A blog to promote our local policies, updates with the latest campaigns and news within the branch

Wednesday, 11 March 2009

Another "Hole in the Heart"

The T&A reports more of Bradford City is centre is demolished in a £45 million pound scheme.

"McAleer & Rushe, a leading construction and development company in Northern Ireland, has applied for planning permission for a 200-bed hotel, to be run by the Jurys Inn chain, and 13,500 square metres of offices."

The T&A also reports the demolition has taken place before any kind of planning application has been approved. There are also reports that the area is a conservation area, which makes the whole process rather bizarre.

10's of millions of pounds wasted on what could be another Broadway fiasco, and looking at how long the recession maybe, the companies may go bust before completion.

"The Park in the Heart" is set to cost a fair amount, as well as the (never appearing) Westfield Development. The Odeon is another contentious issue.

Don't get us wrong, we want to see Bradford as a modern, enticing place to do business and live. But the amount of money thrown at these big city demolition jobs, and the lack of progress at a time when we need to be bringing in business to provide jobs in the recession is incredible.

The Council would do better using money to give the people of Bradford a Council Tax freeze instead of putting it up to pay for all these failed projects. We need to get people spending again and help them pay the bills instead of raising taxes every year.

What we really need is to have a council that can control its own business rates, look to lower them so Bradford can be a competitive place to do business. - We need to encourage businesses to set up shop!